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Clean, Beautiful Living

Happily Morning After

Being a green beauty doesn’t just mean using facial oils and avoiding parabens. Us clean girls believe that beauty comes from the inside out, that the best glow comes from eating your vegetables and that yoga and Pilates beat blush and mascara for getting rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. Still, we are not saints (or, at least, I certainly am not). There are those evenings with best friends and margaritas, the Dutch courage for karaoke nights, the oysters and absinthe at Maison Premiere and maybe (*gasp!*) even the occasional cigarette. These are the things that can make life exciting, but boy! they are murder on the skin. Still, your happy indiscretions needn’t leave a mark. Here is your green beauty prescription for having glowing skin, even with a pounding head.

First, here is the one thing that you must do when you get home: wash your face!!! Yes, I know that it’s 3 am, that the room is spinning and the siren call of your bed is all but impossible to resist. I don’t care. This may not be the time to go to town with your cleansing balms, but at the very least, you can manage a swipe with a micellar water or a quick splash with a gentle foaming cleanser like One Love Organic’s Easy Does It cleanser (I mean, it’s so easy, it’s in the name). After cleansing, make sure to do a quick spritz of your favorite facial spray – ideally something calming and hydrating like Yuli’s Cocoon Elixir or Demamiel’s delicious Dewy Facial Mist, which calms the skin and soothes the spirit with its mix of stellar ingredients and beautiful flower essences. If you are too tired for your full nighttime routine, now might be a good time for a facial balm. May Lindstrom’s beautiful, soothing Blue Cocoon is gentle enough to use all over (including around the eyes) and is perfect for calming and hydrating the skin. Plus, I find its scent to be as tranquil and cozy as being wrapped in the softest cashmere blanket. It really calms the troubled mind and helps me float off to sleep.

There must be at least a million articles, posts and listicles on tips and tricks for curing hangovers and I think it is fairly safe to say that none of them really work, or at least don’t work especially well. Thankfully, green beauty makes it much easier to fix your skin than that killer headache. Most of us know that hangovers are caused by dehydration. That same dehydration is also responsible for many of the post-party skin woes. When I am having a rough morning, I drink like a camel and amp the power of my water with the Glow and Detox powders from The Beauty Chef. These Australian treats are my latest obsession. Packed with pre- and probiotics, antioxidants, amino acids and other beautifying ingredients, I think they make a real difference to my skin and when my body feels heavy and polluted, they provide a delicious, healthy charge of nutrients, while helping my poor, battered liver.

Puffy, morning-after eyes can be deflated with an eye product containing caffeine. My beloved Decouverte Serum from La Bella Figura contains green coffee bean oil, but if you prefer a cream or a gel (their advantage being that they can be kept in the fridge for a cooling treat), Absolution’s Soin Regard and 100% Pure’s Coffee Bean Eye Cream both use coffee extracts in their formulas to help drain and tighten the skin. Soin Regard also has mica particles, which help blur imperfections and make tired eyes appear brighter. Once you have taken care of those blearily eyes, it is the time to use your most nourishing and hydrating oils. Look for single ingredient oils like argan or barbary seed to avoid aggravating already unhappy skin or choose skin-soothing blends like Between You and the Moon’s fabulous Nourish and Replenish (one of my favorite oils – I will discuss it in detail in an upcoming post).

A hungover morning is also a good time for a mask. If, like me, overindulgence leaves your skin parched and irritated, soothe and hydrate it with LBF’s Bioactive Healing Mask or my latest discovery: Blissoma’s Lavish – Loving Recovery Beta-Glucan Mask. That name is a mouthful, but the mask is fantastic! Incredibly gentle, it feels cool and soothing, immediately calms irritation and leaves the skin so hydrated, that I do not need to use a moisturizer after washing it off (a rarity for me). If alcohol, rich food and late nights make you break out, you need the blemish-busting power of May Lindstrom’s Problem Solver. A firm favorite of virtually every green beauty blogger, it’s a spicy, warming powerhouse of a mask that zaps zits and awakens circulation. Of course, you don’t actually have to splurge on a mask to give your skin a boost. Raw honey (especially manuka) makes for a fabulous mask: it hydrates, calms inflammation and busts acne-causing bacteria. Mix it in with a bit of full-fat yoghurt (preferably organic or grass-fed) for added hydration and exfoliation (from the lactic acid).

I’m going to revise the first statement of this post: the number one thing to give you a glow is happiness. So do the things that make you happy and should you get just a little too happy? Thankfully, there is always green beauty to help save the day!